What device would Virtual reality work with?

Virtual Reality has become the latest technical innovation that is driving the consumer market to new heights. Instead of looking at an object on the screen, virtual reality allows us to almost touch or feel it in the simulated world. In many ways, it is close to what we saw in Matrix, the movie that gave a definitive understanding of the simulated reality to the entire world.

Have you ever wondered which of the devices used in your daily life can work with virtual reality?

In the past, virtual reality needed special equipment. But VR 2.0 that got sparked by the advent of Oculus devices and the Android smartphones actually works with many of our daily use electronics.

For example, your high-end Android phone can be used as an input device in certain VR headsets like Google Cardboard and Samsung VR gear. Google has been pushing steadily into the VR world. Their first attempt was the inexpensive Google Cardboard, a project that you can either build on your own or purchase for $10-$30. Just slide in your Android phone into the Google Cardboard and you have a very low-end head-mounted display. The system uses the phones inbuilt gyroscope and accelerometer to measure its relative position change to present the relative scenes.

Some higher end devices like the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive need a powerful gaming PC to run the software and provide an input to the screens. Typically, they are connected by a high-speed cable like HDMI that can rapidly transfer high-resolution images, videos and data to the VR headset.

There are also console based VR headsets like the PlayStation VR that connect with a gaming console. These headsets can be connected using a USB or HDMI cable and much like a PDC, they provide the headset with the data and images and video necessary to run the VR setup.

The VR world is rapidly moving towards standalone VR headsets that do not need an expensive PC or a console. Oculus Go is the first in this series. The headset wirelessly connects with your smartphone’s Oculus app to run the entire VR software. The wire-free experience is bound to attract the mass market adoption as it brings out a hassle-free device at a great price point.

As the technology progresses, more and more of our devices will get ready to interact with VR headsets. While this list has so far talked about the consumer grade tech, specialised VR devices for the fields of medicine, engineering and the military are typically purpose-built to connect seamlessly with different types of operating systems. For example, VR sets designed for flight simulators have a different grade of the gyroscopic calibration than what you can get with your Android smartphone.

The devices used to train doctors in robotic surgery have a different set of specification than the mass market product like Rift and price will be a several thousand dollars more expensive.

The day will not be far when we can shop using our VR headsets in a VR mall.